For what has God, who exacts it ever
denied89458945 Routh would
read, “What will God deny?” to prayer coming
from “spirit and truth?” How mighty specimens of its
efficacy do we read, and hear, and believe! Old-world prayer,
indeed, used to free from fires,89468946Dan. iii. and from
beasts,89478947Dan. vi. and from
famine;894889481 Kings xviii.; James v. 17,
18. and yet it had not
(then) received its form from Christ. But how far more amply operative
is Christian prayer! It does not station the angel of dew
in mid-fires,89498949 i.e. “the
angel who preserved in the furnace the three youths besprinkled, as it
were, with dewy shower” (Muratori quoted by Oehler).
[Apocrypha, The Song, etc., verses 26, 27.] nor muzzle lions, nor transfer to the hungry
the rustics’ bread;895089502 Kings iv. 42–44. it has no delegated
grace to avert any sense of suffering;89518951 i.e. in brief,
its miraculous operations, as they are called, are suspended in
these ways.
but it supplies the suffering, and the feeling, and the grieving, with
endurance: it amplifies grace by virtue, that faith may know what she
obtains from the Lord, understanding what—for God’s
name’s sake—she suffers. But in days gone by, withal prayer
used to call down89528952 Or,
“inflict.” plagues, scatter
the armies of foes, withhold the wholesome influences of the showers.
Now, however, the prayer of righteousness averts all God’s anger,
keeps bivouac on behalf of personal enemies, makes supplication on
behalf of persecutors. Is it wonder if it knows how to extort
the rains of heaven89538953 See
Apolog. c. 5 (Oehler).—(prayer)
which was once able to procure its fires?89548954 See 2 Kings i. Prayer is alone that which
vanquishes89558955 [A reference to
Jacob’s wrestling. Also, probably, to Matt. xi. 12.] God. But Christ has
willed that it be operative for no evil: He had conferred on it all its
virtue in the cause of good. And so it knows nothing save how to
recall the souls of the departed from the very path of death, to
transform the weak, to restore the sick, to purge the possessed, to
open prison-bars, to loose the bonds of the innocent. Likewise it
washes away faults, repels temptations, extinguishes persecutions,
consoles the faint-spirited, cheers the high-spirited, escorts
travellers, appeases waves, makes robbers stand aghast, nourishes the
poor, governs the rich, upraises the fallen, arrests the falling,
confirms the standing. Prayer is the wall of faith: her arms and
missiles89568956 Or, “her armour
defensive and offensive.” against the foe who
keeps watch over us on all sides. And, so never walk we unarmed. By
day, be we mindful of Station; by night, of vigil. Under the arms of
prayer guard we the standard of our General; await we in prayer the
angel’s trump.895789571 Cor. xv. 52; 1 Thess. iv. 16. The angels,
likewise, all pray; every creature prays; cattle and wild beasts pray
and bend their knees; and when they issue from their layers and
lairs,89588958 Or, “pens and
dens.” they look up
heavenward with no idle mouth, making their breath vibrate89598959 As if in prayer. after their own manner. Nay, the birds too,
rising out of the nest, upraise themselves heavenward, and, instead of
hands, expand the cross of their wings, and say somewhat to seem like
prayer.89608960 This beautiful passage
should be supplemented by a similar one from St. Bernard: “Nonne
et aviculas levat, non onerat pennarum numerositas ipsa? Tolle eas, et
reliquum corpus pondere suo fertur ad ima. Sic disciplinam Christi, sic
suave jugum, sic onus leve, quo deponimus, eo deprimimur ipsi:
quia portat potius quam portatur.” Epistola, ccclxxxv. Bernardi
Opp. Tom. i. p. 691. Ed. (Mabillon.) Gaume, Paris, 1839. Bearing the
cross uplifts the Christian.] What more then,
touching the office of prayer? Even the Lord Himself prayed; to whom be
honour and virtue unto the ages of the ages!